Putting The One Minute Manager To Work
From the desk of Mr. Ken Blanchard: I Forgot The Implementation
Those of you who have an own team to manage at work know that a good and systematic management style is important. At least if you want to succeed in being an effective manager, and you don’t want to end up doing things yourself too often. Being an effective manager benefits directly your own time management.
The original “One Minute Manager” by Ken Blanchard introduced a simple three stage process for candid management in a company. Those steps are simply:
- Set measurable goals
- When an employee performs well: Praise
- When an employee fails to perform as expected: Reprimand
Praising is when you communicate that you are happy with the work of an employee. It should be done by communicating how you actually feel (proud, happy…) as a manager about their good performance. Communicating feelings goes through. Reprimanding means that you directly state your disappointment to your subordinate, and it should be ended in a positive tone (by telling how you “believe they can do better”, or something like this). When you end reprimands in a positive tone, people remember better the core message, which is their own bad performance. Not you being mad at them, which is not the point.
As the original book was short – like all the books in the One Minute Manager series – not so much time was spent on discussing how to really make the system work, i.e. how to make it happen. This book is in that sense a complementary volume to the original one. And yes, you guessed right, it focuses on… implementation. Ken’s stories are written as fictive stories, with the different figures in the story laying out the theory in discussions. They also contain flying sentences and mottoes, like this one:
Most Companies Spend All Their Time Looking For Another Management Concept
And Very Little Time Following Up The One They Have Just Taught Their Managers
This one is also excellent:
As a Manager The Important Thing Is Not What Happens When You Are There
But What Happens When You Are Not There
If it is a small while since you have read the original “One Minute Manager” book, no worries. A handy recap is included in the book, and also illustrated below.
The One Minute Manager system revisited. (Putting The One Minute Manager to Work, page 26)
Actually, the ABC’s of management shown above is a small elaboration of the original concept, as we have three new terms here: Activators, Behavior, and Consequences. But the point is simply that managers are in charge of, and should concentrate on, activating people to do things, and after that on managing consequences. It is the employees who perform the actual behavior.
What the really new part in this book was a tool called Price.
The Price System
When taking all this a little deeper, we get PRICE:
| P | Pinpoint | Determine the performance area of interest |
| R | Record | Measure current performance level on a graph |
| I | Involve | Agree on performance goals and coaching |
| C | Coach | Observe performance and manage consequences |
| E | Evaluate | Track performance progress and determine future strategies |
The five steps of the PRICE system. Do you think the PRICE is right?
There is nothing revolutionary in PRICE. It is just one way to take the ABC’s of management – the one minute management system (or whatever you want to call it) – and to put it to work. You start by determining an area where you want your team member to improve. You then find some way to measure the current performance level (like visits per week, or calls day, or equal). After that you agree on a realistic, improved, new performance level, and set it as a goal to your employee. And yes, you then start measuring progress on a regular basis. You use training, reprimanding and praising along the way. And the measuring can be a simple paper system. Or a small Excel sheet. Don’t make it rocket science.
And then you get success. Simple, right?
Summary
I am a fan of candid management. I also think that for anyone who has a team to manage, it is important to use simple tools for managing your team effectively. For a manager that is best possible time management. Therefore, I warmly recommend this book, right after having read the original one (“One Minute Manager”).
Time Management Books. Please have a look at my personal collection of the best books around this subject. From each one I have got at least one really useful insight.
Time Management (Main Page). Learn different time management solutions and be more efficient in everything you do. Increase your personal productivity and discover more free time!